


Loyal to My Hate

by tiger_moran



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes (Downey films)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Hand Jobs, Hate Sex, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-14
Updated: 2012-10-14
Packaged: 2017-11-16 07:32:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/537035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiger_moran/pseuds/tiger_moran
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Reichenbach, a vengeful Moran seeks out Watson.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Loyal to My Hate

    He smells the cigarette smoke before he sees him, and Watson may not be able to identify a hundred and forty types of cigar, cigarette and tobacco ash as Holmes could but he knows that smell. For a moment, just a moment, he’s snapped out of the dark East London backstreet to the bright heat of Afghanistan; to a vision of a man with fierce blue eyes who squinted against the sun at him; who looked at him as if everything about Dr. Watson amused him, but who would never reveal just why this was so.

   He’s back in London, but the face in front of his is the same – or almost the same.

   “Evening, Doctor,” says Colonel Sebastian Moran. Standing leaning against the alley wall, cigarette stuck in the corner of his mouth. He looks thinner and older now, and more battle-hardened.

   “Colonel,” Watson says, glad of the comforting weight of his revolver in his pocket.

   “I wouldn’t shoot if I were you,” Moran says, before Watson can make the slightest movement to try to actually pick up his gun. “Course I  _ain’t_  you, but if I was; a man in your position… shooting an unarmed man in the street. Would not look good, is all I’m saying.”

   “I think it might count as putting down a dangerous dog,” Watson remarks. “Professor Moriarty’s lapdog. The  _late_  Professor Moriarty, I might add.”

   “Yeah, and whose doing was that?” Moran says coolly. “Miss him, do you? Old Sherlock?”

   “That’s not your concern.”

   “No,  _you_  are.” Moran steps towards him, plucking the cigarette from his mouth between dirty fingers, the nails grimed with something that might be mud or might be old blood. His eyes are colder; harder now; his beard unkempt and his clothes crumpled. He smells faintly of alcohol and his eyes are red-rimmed – from lack of sleep, Watson presumes; Colonel Moran could not possibly ever shed a tear. “Don’t think because we have history I will go easy with you, or that pretty wife of yours.”

   Instantly Watson grabs Moran by the lapel of his jacket and slams him back against the bricks. “If you lay a finger on my wife-”

   Moran laughs – throws back his head and all but cackles at him, but it cuts off in an instant, as if a veil has dropped over him, and Watson thinks perhaps the man’s mind has finally gone. Even in Afghanistan there were rumours that the colonel was not entirely sane. “Or you’ll what, Doctor?” he says gruffly, still grinning, infinitely malevolently.

   “I’ll kill you.”

   Moran laughs again. “You think that scares me? You think I’ve never been prepared to lay down my life? Have you forgotten just who I am? I lost myself a long, long time ago. My life, Doctor, has never been mine. It was my father’s first, then it belonged to Queen and country, and then it belonged to him - to the professor, and now he’s gone… I have nothing left. So which one of us, precisely, has the most to lose? Me, or the man with the respectable career and friends and, oh yes, the beautiful wife?”

   “I’ll still kill you,” Watson says viciously.

   “And then you’ll hang for it,” Moran sneers. “There’s no scrap of proof of anything against me; in the eyes of the law I’m innocent and you’ll be the brutal murderer, and they’ll string you up and I’ll have still had my revenge.” He swiftly knocks Watson’s hands away now. “There’s nothing you can do to hurt me now, pretty boy.”

   “I’d still rather kill you than let you within a mile of my wife.”

   “Poor Mary,” Moran says. “If her husband’s strung up for murder. Poor disgraced Mary. Society has this queer habit of shunning the criminal classes, don’t you know – even those deemed guilty only by association.”

   Watson punches him. Doesn’t think about it, just does.

   Moran staggers sideways but he keeps his balance and he’s still laughing as he touches his hand to his now bleeding nose. “Is that the best you can manage?” he enquires.

   Watson lunges at him with no idea what he’s doing; only that he wants to hurt this man. His body knocks Moran’s back, crushing him against the wall while his hands reach for Moran’s throat. The smouldering cigarette drops to the dirty ground, but Moran stinks of cigarette smoke and now Watson has him pinned there it’s all he can smell. Moran’s face is so close to his; his hands are wrapped around Watson’s body, and the smell; the proximity of him; the heat of his body; that contemptuous but amused look in Moran’s eyes… Watson remembers.

    He remembers clutching Moran to him as they coupled and Moran’s strong hands pinning his wrists to the table; to the bed, and the colonel on top of him, rough but always on the right side of rough, and clever with his fingers; with his mouth. Moran who would never, ever call him by his Christian name, nor allow Watson to call him Sebastian. Watson thinks maybe he loved Moran, once; a lifetime ago.

   Moran laughs even while Watson is trying to choke him, and now… now Watson knows just why he’s so amused; Moran can feel Watson’s arousal pressed against his hip.

   Watson drops his hands from Moran’s throat, disgusted with himself and with his body’s reactions, and Moran just watches him with a predatory look in his eyes.

   “Doctor,” he says, in that same sneering tone. “I expected more from you. You disappoint me.”

   “I’m not going to kill you.” That’s what Moran wants him to do, and Watson can’t give him that. Isn’t there a part of Watson though that understands just why the colonel is so utterly broken? So empty? So vengeful yet so entirely unconcerned for his own life? He’d thought Moran inhuman – as callous and unfeeling as Moriarty, but he’s not. There’s a broken, damaged heart beating behind that cold mask; that uncaring veneer, and Moran has truly lost everything. Even if he deserves it all, Watson can understand what it feels like to lose someone he loves dearly – who means the world to him; he understands the colonel’s wounded fury. Maybe killing him would be the kindest thing, but still Watson won’t give him that – won’t let him have that victory.

   What he does do is kiss Moran – brutally; aggressively. It tastes of blood and their teeth click together and his tongue is in Moran’s mouth (which, Watson notes, tastes strongly of stale tobacco and whisky, beneath the fresh blood; no food; he doubts Moran has eaten in days) and his hands are groping under Moran’s clothing; fumbling; reaching down. Maybe he’s expecting Moran to fight him before he gets this far but he doesn’t; the colonel is clearly just as aroused as he is and he’s pressing into Watson’s touch while his hands drop to unbutton Watson’s trousers; slip inside to caress the doctor. For those few moments there is nothing else but sex - the soldier and the surgeon roughly squeezing and stroking each other while their mouths are locked together. No lovemaking; no tenderness, just angry sex against a cold, hard wall; passionate but a dark passion; lust purely fuelled by hate because maybe that’s all Moran can feel now, and because Watson  _knows_  it’s either this or kill Moran right here and now. Still though they remember Afghanistan; they remember when they weren’t trying to kill each other; they remember…

   Moran shudders into orgasm first, gasping into Watson’s mouth, the doctor refusing to let him break the bloodied kiss even at the moment of crisis, but Watson is only moments behind him, bucking into Moran’s grasp. He shifts his face to Moran’s shoulder; bites down on the colonel’s dirty overcoat to keep from crying out as he spends into Moran’s fist.

   The colonel laughs again the instant he has his breath back, not caring even when Watson wipes his hand off on Moran’s coat, even though Moran wipes himself off with a filthy handkerchief. He still clutches Watson tightly though with one hand as he pockets the handkerchief again, panting hotly against Watson’s neck, trying to straighten himself up a little so that he can put his mouth to Watson’s ear to whisper, “You know he’s still alive, Doctor.”

   Watson goes very still.

  “Still alive; perfectly well, and yet he lets you think he’s dead.”

   Dazed, Watson cannot understand what Moran means – or perhaps he does not  _want_  to comprehend Moran’s meaning.

   “Saw him with my own eyes,” Moran says, tracing patterns on Watson’s back through his clothing as he holds him. “Holmes is alive.”

    Watson recoils from him, staring with bright accusing eyes, but still he cannot quite summon up either the shock or the outright dismissal this revelation merits. “You’re lying.”

   Moran tilts his chin up, mouth quirked into a crooked, malicious grin. “On my honour, I am not.”

   “You have no honour,” Watson spits, but he  _wants_  to believe Moran – wants to believe it so very, very much, and hasn’t he thought all along if anyone could survive any precarious situation then it would be Holmes? But then why would Holmes continue to let Watson think him dead? Allow him to have a memorial service? Allow him to grieve and try to live with this deep empty ache in his soul?

   “He lives, Doctor; went to his brother, didn’t he? Trusted his brother, but not you.” Moran is laughing at him again, gloating, and Watson does believe him now. Maybe it’s wrong, but he does believe him. “He’s alive,” Moran adds, as he buttons up his own trousers, “but I’m going to kill him.” Then he’s gone, just like that, flitting away into the shadows like a ghost.

    Watson slumps against the wall, sliding halfway down into the gutter where Moran’s discarded cigarette floats in a puddle. He feels dirty and thoroughly ashamed of what he’s just done, and deeply betrayed by Holmes.

    Perhaps Moran has had a kind of victory after all.

 


End file.
